Where does design start?

We had just sat down. 

The quiet bustle of activity and interest poured out of the red backed seats. Sharp, flat, cascade, conversation, dialogue, clash, flourish. It was inspiring, and yet intense. Light and yet still craven. Divine and yet an all consumed rebel. As a whole, the audience was plucked from our seats and with the sounds of string, brass, and voice moved to an adjacent world. 

Why do we listen to music? The world around us could function without it, right? Is music a luxury or a necessity? Where do we find music? 

I often like to ponder and discuss these questions. I think they make us more interesting and add more richness to our river of life. 

We move through our lives in contact with things that were thought of. In a boardroom, at lunch, over a cup of bad coffee. Far too often in a room that lacks diversity and with it, creativity. 

There are times where people have to communicate about what things will look like, sound like, or feel like. Far too often; we sacrifice design simply for function. 

“It just has to get the job done” But what job is it serving if the ‘thing’ isn’t something that stretches us or that gels with our lives. Lives filled with moments that seemling serve no other function, but to move us to an adjacent world.  

The reason why I started to design digital spaces was to start to close that gap between the mindset of function first and design second, to meld both the function of the object or service into its new found center of design. 
 
So where does design start? 

I believe it ought to start at the beginning of the execution of an idea. Before it gets too far down the utilitarian path, we should fold in, formal lines of creativity like flow and add inspiration into everything we believe. A website is just as complicated as a piece of music. 

If we ignore the design in our lives, we will enter a space that is only functional. We will seemingly ignore the clang, flat, sharp, conversation that is always around us.